Column: Are You Stealing Vista?

A Microsoft executive sent out a snotty email chastising anyone who has been encouraging people to purchase the Vista upgrade and install it without owning a valid Windows license. People discovered long ago that the Vista upgrade, which costs half of what full license costs, will install on new hardware without verification of a previous install. Microsoft's Eric Ligman points out, to those people who weren't aware, that this is just as much a violation of the license as "borrowing" an install disk from a friend.